But how will it change?
Photo courtesy Disney
As I mentioned in the same article from the Sentinel, MyMagic+ has upset many long-time Disney fans because it disrupted the way that they had planned and enjoyed their Disney World vacations. All that experience and knowledge that guests had built up over years and years of visiting no longer mattered as much in a new system where the rules for securing ride times on popular attractions were very different.
MyMagic+ is hardly the first time that Disney has disrupted it systems, and each time something like this has happened before, the parks' attendance and revenue has continued to grow. Remember the variety of ticket and vacation packages that Disney offered before the Magic Your Way ticket structure? People howled when Disney introduced Magic Your Way, but most of those critics came around and found how to make the new system work for them, too.
What about when Disney started requiring credit card numbers to hold restaurant reservations? People who were exploiting the old way of doing things complained because they couldn't sit on blocks of reservations times any longer. But the rest of us started getting more chances to get the reservations we wanted without having to go through self-appointed third-party gatekeepers online. Eventually, everyone adapted.
Imagine if we'd all been on the Internet back when Disney started allowing people to call in advance for Epcot restaurant reservations instead of requiring you to use the in-park video conferencing screens that Epcot used in its first years. I suspect that there would have been a handful of very vocal critics howling that Disney was dumbing down its futuristic video calling system that rewarded fans who got to the park early in favor of letting lazier visitors book reservations with just an old-fashioned, low-tech phone call. (Full disclosure: I, uh, probably would have been one of them complaining about that. Sorry.)
We already are seeing operational changes on the west coast in preparation for the introduction of MyMagic+ at Disneyland. This month's switch to a World of Color-style Fastpass reservation system for Fantasmic! at Disneyland provides one example. Are some people who've been coming to the park after work and holding spaces for hours in advance of the show upset that they can't do that any longer? Sure. But many more of us are happy to see the New Orleans Square riverbank free of campers in the early evening, giving everyone a little more space to walk around the often-crowded area. Of course, that's distributed more people throughout the park in the hours leading up to Fantasmic!, but if you're one of those people who otherwise would have had to been sitting on the ground in front of the river trying to hold a space, it's nice to be able to enjoy the rest of the park for longer, for a change.
The point is: Whenever you disrupt a system, many of the people who had optimized their experience under the old system will be upset that they have lost their advantage over people who didn't optimize their experience. But the new system creates new opportunities. And, I suspect, given past experience, that the people who figure out how to make the new system work for them will pretty much be the same people who figured out how to work the old system, before.
So, here's the challenge, and my question for you. Given all that you know about MyMagic+ and your experience visiting theme parks, what would you like to see Disney do as it rolls out MyMagic+ to other parks to help ensure that the change helps more people? How would you like to see Disney adapt MyMagic+ to better serve the different audience in Southern California? And how would you like to see Disney tweak MyMagic+ in the months ahead to better serve its existing audience in Orlando?
Let's make one thing very clear, however. Going back to the old way is not an option. MyMagic+ is driving more guest spending at WDW, as new visitors embrace it and old visitors who complain about it keep spending their money at Disney anyway. The system is working for Disney and it's not going away.
But it will change. Staggs has said that. So let's take this opportunity to talk about how we'd like to see that happen.
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